Gates opening at midday allowed trickles of fans to enter the ground, and make sure that no major cue and delay would happen to the game. This meant that near to a thousand fans were inside the ground by 1PM. The heat was intense, and the atmosphere building.
After having seen the Dons loose on Wednesday evening, I felt a bad sport, and didn’t want to write anything about it: I felt as though we were hard done by, and at least deserved a draw over the well organised Chipstead, but that was not to be our night. The start of today’s game didn’t look as though it would be our day as well.
A bizarre mix up caused our defender to attempt to clear the ball from the box, only to hit the post for a corner; this made the Dons look very shaky indeed. In the 36th minute, after a few attacks from the Dons came a goal, which looked a carbon copy of the first goal, scored by Kingstonian and Chipstead. After this the Dons seemed to fall asleep. The crowd were hushed, and our dream seemed to have evaporated in front of us: the dream that we would storm the league; that every attack would lead to a goal; clean sheet after clean sheet; three points after three points… Sadly, it looked as though this “dream” would be more like: sitting mid-table, getting 1-1 draws away to Viking Greenford.
I pictured myself in Terry Eames’ shoes; what I would do. I knew what I would do: I would tell him that there were 3,330 souls outside who’s main passion was their football team, and by losing (again), their hearts would be crushed. Whatever Eames said it surely seemed to have a marginal affect. Half way through the first half, a goal came after due effort. We celebrated jubilantly and felt as though something may be salvaged from the game. How wrong we were to be: straight from the kick off, their attack seemed to glide through our players, as though they were training cones, slotting the ball neatly past Bell. The crowd felt sick, and the look on Eames’ face said a million words. Still we kept on chanting, banging the advertising boards, and cheering “our” team on. Within 30 seconds, a shot was blasted in which the crowd behind the goal with their arms open ready to catch the ball, but the ball took a wicked curl and bent straight into the back of the net. The keeper’s face was priceless, and the fans hugged and celebrated. The Dons asserted themselves, and took the opposition by the scruff of the neck, forcing torrent after torrent of attacks, inundating the Cove box with near misses, and near jubilant screams from the stands. In the 89th minute, however, victory was to be rewarded, as the Dons created a goal-mouth scramble which allowed a shot to be laid past the keeper.
The seconds seemed like minutes, and the minutes seemed like hours, as close to 5 minutes of injury time was added, in which our boys could have got another three: two skims of the post, and one save by their keeper. Throughout the second half we showed that we could play as a team, and win as a team. No one doubts the quality that is within the individuals on the pitch, but what people have doubted is the quality of the team. Do 11 David Beckhams make a good team? Exactly. What we showed in the second half was that AFC Wimbledon are a team to be reckoned with. Watch out Ash United, we’re getting into gear…